But what do China’s netizens think? Here’s a small sample from China smack.

Seeing the reactions of the North Korean people, and then seeing the comments of so many [Chinese] netizens, I suddenly feel at a loss. Do we need hero worship/cult of personality? Do we need religion/conviction? …North Korea may be lacking material wealth, but it has a strong spiritual strength! Whereas us, we’re the complete opposite! While we chased after material wealth, we lost what is actually most valuable, a spiritual conviction!

I can’t respect those media that criticize Kim Jong-il. They only dare to criticize Kim Jong-il is because they know Kim won’t deploy the military to their countries and slaughter them like Imperialist America, because he won’t use financial hegemony to cut off their financial resources, nor would he buy off other media to go criticize these media. So criticizing Kim Jong-il is the safest thing to do, because they won’t be beaten or criticized, they won’t be fired or go bankrupt. And they can be financially rewarded by Imperialist America.

BEIJING – China on Monday offered its “deep condolences” on the death of Kim Jong-il, top leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

“We are shocked to learn that DPRK top leader comrade Kim Jong-il passed away and we hereby express our deep condolences on his demise and send sincere regards to the DPRK people,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu when responding to a question from the press.